Wine&Dine: another romance for the over 40
www.lbdunbar.com
Love Notes
Wine&Dine
Copyright © 2019 Laura Dunbar
L.B. Dunbar Writes, Ltd.
https://www.lbdunbar.com/
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.
Cover Design: Shannon Passmore/Shanoff Formats
Content Editor: Melissa Shank
Editor: Jenny Simms/Editing4Indies
Proofreading: Karen Fischer
Table of Contents
Other Books by L.B. Dunbar
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
More by L.B. Dunbar
Keep in touch with L.B. Dunbar
Nibble of what’s next: Silver Brewer
(L)ittle (B)lessings
About the Author
Other Books by L.B. Dunbar
Silver Fox Former Rock Stars
After Care
Midlife Crisis
Restored Dreams
Second Chance
Wine&Dine
Collision novellas
Collide
Rom-com for the over 40
The Sex Education of M.E.
The Sensations Collection
Sound Advice
Taste Test
Fragrance Free
Touch Screen
Sight Words
Spin-off Standalone
The History in Us
The Legendary Rock Star Series
The Legend of Arturo King
The Story of Lansing Lotte
The Quest of Perkins Vale
The Truth of Tristan Lyons
The Trials of Guinevere DeGrance
Paradise Stories
Abel
Cain
The Island Duet
Redemption Island
Return to the Island
Modern Descendants – writing as elda lore
Hades
Solis
Heph
Dedication
For my readers, who continue to encourage me and make me want to be the best for them.
Cheers, Lovelies!
1
Runaway
[Dolores]
“Just go, Dolores,” my brother says to me. I stare at him, not even able to blink. Even though Denton is two years younger than I am, he looks better than I feel. Rock star. Model. Photographer. He’s lived a life while I’ve spent mine here—in Blue Ridge, Georgia.
“I can’t just leave,” I admonish, brushing back my hair. It needs a cut and a wash. In fact, I can’t remember when I last showered. Since my mother’s death, a steady stream of well-wishers have stopped by at all hours to check on me.
I’m fine.
“Dolores.” My brother sighs. It’s a crime that men age well. At forty-five, he still has sharp cheekbones, bright dark eyes, and a smile that’ll warm a room. I could hate him, but I don’t. I understand why he ran away when he was eighteen. Our father was a miserable man. Still, it isn’t lost on me that I was the one left behind to hold together the pieces of an already cracked vase. The diner. The farm. Our mother. Our grandmother. The list has been endless for twenty-seven years. And I’m tired.
“You can leave. I’m here now.”
“Until you decide to leave again,” I snap, causing Denton to flinch from his seat on a stool. He sits opposite the counter, the one I’ve been drawing circles on while we talk. He’s right about this place. The paneling is dated, and the floor looks dirty even though it’s clean. Grease permeates everything. Dolores’ Diner is run down, and so am I.
“I deserve that,” he says, lowering his voice, “but I have no intention of leaving. I finally have Mati in my life, and I’m not letting her go.”
Matilda Harrington Rathstone had been my brother’s fantasy girl his entire young life. As best friends, he gave her up to their other best friend, Chris Rathstone—Rath—when they were young, but Denton got his second chance with her.
I nod in response to my brother because I don’t know what to say. He disappeared again the day after our mother’s funeral. Although he called me, promising he would come back, I didn’t have much faith in him. When he left at eighteen, he left. To my surprise, he took my calls occasionally, but he was always busy. The road. The band. The women. He didn’t listen to me about our father’s death, our mother’s illness, or our grandmother’s declining health. All those things fell on me—the dutiful daughter.
“Look. I’m giving you my keys.” Denton slides a ring of keys across the Formica countertop. “Take the Beast and drive. Get out of town. Get away from here. Get the fuck away from Rusty.”
My head shoots up at the mention of Rusty Miller. Crusty Rusty—a member of the local motorcycle club Devil’s Edge and my lover-with-only-lover-benefits for the past ten years. I can’t even call him a friend, and he’d never allow me to call him a boyfriend. In simple terms, he’s been a sex partner to me and a few other women in the area. I cringe at that thought. I typically defend my relationship with Rusty, what little relationship I can call it, but watching my brother get the girl of his dreams leaves me questioning my own sensibility in regard to Rusty. Slowly, I’m realizing I want a little more for me.
“Can’t just go. Just drive and disappear.” I wave a hand dismissively toward the front window of the diner. I open at six a.m., but Denton showed up and locked the door, pulling the blinds and turning the sign back to CLOSED.
“Yes. You can,” he emphasized. “You can do this, and you should.”
“Where would I go?” A teeny-tiny niggling of a possibility tiptoes over my chest. Could I do this?
“California,” Denton says, his voice rising an octave, and he double taps his hands against the counter. Bah-dum-dum. “I’m giving you my keys. Car. Condo. It’s on the beach.”
Denton lowers his head to peer up at me. “Ever been to the beach, Dolores?”
I sigh. Yes, I’ve been to the beach. Bolton Lake is only a few miles from here, but somehow, I know the lake isn’t the beach he means.
“The ocean,” he clarifies as if reading my thoughts.
“Of cou
rse.” I weakly smile. “When we were kids.” I can’t say I fondly remember the experience. It was one of the few times we took a family vacation. Like so many family outings, it ended poorly. Daddy drunk. Mother a close second. Denton getting in trouble. Had Daddy started hitting him by then? I don’t recall.
“A real ocean,” Denton teases. “The Pacific.”
I chuckle. He’s so full of himself and California. My eyes roam his face. He’s going to find it difficult in this small town. Everyone will be in his business, especially when that business includes Mati, a beloved daughter of society and widow of the well-respected Chris Rathstone. Yet I see a twinkle in his eye, and a certain brightness fills his face. He looks…happy. I’m not certain I know the emotion, but if I could recognize it, I’d say Denton wears it.
“You just got back here,” I remind him. His month-long absence left everything to me again. The after-funeral effects, the diner, the farm, and our aging grandmother, Magnolia. “I can’t leave you.”
“Yes, you can,” he repeats. “In fact, it might be better for me. I need to dig in.” He spreads his hands over the scrub-worn counter and then folds his fingers like he came across something sticky.
“You don’t know the first thing about running a diner.”
“I have Hollilyn.”
“She’s ready to have a baby any day,” I shriek. My assistant manager and flirty waitress is due to have her first child in less than a month.
“Let me worry about that,” Denton remarks.
“And then there’s Magnolia. She doesn’t know what to do with herself now that Mama’s gone.”
“Already working on that as well.” He winks, actually winks, as though he knows a secret, but he isn’t sharing with me.
My head tilts, and my hip juts out. I stare at him again. He fought so hard to be nothing like our father. In many ways, he isn’t him, yet all I know of my brother relates to his fame and fortune as a rock star success. He looks like our dad, but not exactly. We look like siblings, but only if you look closely. His once black hair has specks of silver while mine is dull and almost a burning-charcoal color. I don’t have the energy for my typical dye job, the one that gives me a hint of blue mixed with glossy black. We share similar facial bone structure, but while his is more model worthy, mine is because I forget to eat. Our eyes are the biggest difference. His are midnight while mine are a daytime blue—my mother’s eyes, everyone tells me. I view the world just like her: loveless.
As if magnetically attracted to his keys, my fingers stretch as the tips tap on the countertop. My eyes focus on the metal strips with crooked teeth. Could I do this?
In answer to my unspoken question, my brother slides the ring within my reach. The metal hasn’t touched my fingers, but they twitch as the pull grows stronger.
“Do it, Dolores.” He dares me. “Run away for a while.”
“I’d need to go home. Get some clothes. Close my house. Say good-bye to Magnolia.”
Denton reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. My eyes widen at the wad of cash stuffed in it. He pulls two bills and then fumbles with a card. Two Benjamin Franklins and a gold card.
“I can’t take your money,” I admonish. I’m not some charity case. I have my own income, and my own home paid for by said income. I’m an independent business owner, for heaven’s sakes.
“Consider it a loan then. I don’t want you stopping as you pass go. Here’s two hundred dollars and a card to get what you need.”
I chuckle because he can read me. As if he knows I might take his offer but then second-guess myself when I get home to pack my things. My hand smooths down my hip, the feel of my waitress uniform suddenly constricting me. My podiatric-approved shoes with instep support weigh heavy on my feet. Sensing my inability to move, Denton pushes the keys the final distance, and I curl my fingers around the cool teeth. He stands and walks around the counter to envelop me in his arms. I’ve hugged a hundred people since my mother’s death. The people of this town respected her as the former mayor’s widow, even if they didn’t respect the previous mayor.
Denton squeezes me, and I want to feel what he’s offering, but I don’t. I learned long ago to distance myself from physical affection. I can give it easily because it has no effect on me.
Yet.
The comfort of my brother’s arms and his praise in my ear—“I believe in you. You can do this.”—do something to me. I blink, but I won’t cry. I haven’t cried since my mother’s funeral, since even before her diagnosis. I don’t cry. It shows emotion, which I don’t allow myself to feel.
I weakly pat Denton on the lower back. “Thank you.”
He pulls back, his hands framing my face so I’m forced to look him in the eyes.
“This is going to be good for you,” he says, his voice encouraging.
“I’ll be fine,” I reply quietly, giving a nod in agreement. I’m always fine.
2
Wet dog – that’s not a euphemism
[Dolores]
Standing on the shore, I dig my toes in the sand. One week ago, I was preparing for Halloween in the cool mountains of Georgia. Today, I stand barefoot in jeans rolled to my ankles with a tank top and a warm breeze ruffling my hair. My arms cross, protecting myself, or maybe I’m holding myself together.
I did what Denton suggested. I left, took the Beast—his white 1967 Ford Shelby GT500 Super Snake with a blue strip—and drove across the country to California, only making a few stops along the way. A Walmart was sufficient for clothing because I was only worried about getting the essentials. A few pairs of jeans, some T-shirts, a sweater, and new shoes. Though, as my toes wiggle in the cool grains at my feet, I wonder if I’ll ever wear shoes again.
I also bought a cell phone charger with the false hope that Rusty would call me. The fantasy played out in my head where he’d miss me, wonder where I was, and then beg me to return to him. I snort aloud with the thought. One week absent and I haven’t heard from him. Not a text. Not a call. Nothing.
My arms draw tighter around myself.
My second stop was a hotel. Nothing fancy, but one where I felt safe. I’d never traveled alone before, and the process grew daunting as I crossed state lines. At more than one point, I was sick of myself and in desperate need of an audiobook or a new playlist. I hadn’t taken the pleasure to read in so long. Most nights, I fall asleep in front of the television or pass out after a few rounds of sex with Rusty.
I shiver at the thought.
My first night alone—truly alone—outside of Georgia, I slept. Twelve hours. I haven’t slept like that since I was a teenager, and even then, I didn’t sleep half a day away because I worked. My grandmother was still an active owner of her diner back then, named after her mother and my namesake, and I worked there to fill my time. She taught me to cook. She taught me to manage.
Every girl should have her own finances, Magnolia would tell me. Your place might be in a kitchen, but only if you own it. She’d wink. She knew my father’s philosophy. A woman’s place was in the home, specifically the kitchen and the bedroom.
I shiver again.
In the distance, I hear a faint call. I haven’t seen anyone since I arrived last night. I’m not good with the maps app on my phone and grew frustrated at the congestion of the Los Angeles area. Denton’s place is actually north of Santa Monica along the beach. His condo is on the second floor, where only one other resident occupies the other half of the floor.
“Garrett Fox lives next door. He’s harmless. Sort of. Just stay away from him. He’s hardly home anyway, so he shouldn’t give you any trouble. I’ll call him to let him know you’ll be staying at my place for a while.” Denton really came through and took care of everything. His car. His credit cards. His home.
We didn’t have a strong sibling relationship. In fact, I’d even consider it estranged. Even though I’d seen plenty of him in the tabloids and social media, we hadn’t seen each other in twenty-seven years. His rock star status included dating
models and actresses, as well as bad boy behavior, but nothing as extreme as his drummer, Hank Paige. Our cousin Lawson, who now goes by Tommy, rounded out the trio of their band, Chrome Teardrops. His sister, Kit, was their meal ticket as the lead singer. A female phenomenon at the height of rock-chick bands, her diagnosis of breast cancer cut their headlining days short. Rumor has it, Denton quit although we hadn’t discussed his specific reasons.
“We were a shitstorm waiting to implode,” he told me after it happened. That was over ten years ago.
Then again, Denton seems resolved in his return, and he’s trying to make amends, I guess. It’s yet to be determined how well he can handle our small town, the diner, or living with our grandmother for the time being. I have missed my brother over the years, if for no other reason than he is one of the last two living members of my family.
Another bellowed call floats to me, drifting in the echo of the breeze around me. I hear the tender bark of a dog in the distance, but I don’t draw my eyes from the waves before me. The aggressive roll and crash of the salt water appears angry, despite the early hour and the lightening sky announcing a potentially glorious day of sunshine. My head tilts as I welcome the heat. I want to relax, but I haven’t gotten to that point. I don’t even think I know how to relax, but I’m telling myself I must learn.
Suddenly, I’m thrust to the ground, and the wind knocked out of me as something heavy and wet laps at my neck.
I can’t breathe, and my eyes squeeze tight to ward off the weight over me. The most pungent smell overwhelms me.
Wet dog.
Oh God, I hate dogs.
I whimper in fear, worried the thing will bite me. Willing my eyes to open, I peek at the creature on top of me. I try to roll to my side, but I can’t as the furry beast licks my face.
Gross, gross, gross.
My hands struggle to rise, wedging between the underbelly of the beast and brushing against soaked fur. I fight past my repulsion and cover my face, which does nothing to deter the dog.